While the Federal Reserve claims that the United States is making progress towards its goal of maximum employment, some economists and policy experts disagree, citing poor labor participation rates and anemic wage growth to suggest that the economy is not recovering as quickly as the unemployment rate might suggest.

Fifty-six percent of economists polled by the Wall Street Journal, said that the United States would meet the Fed’s goal of “full employment” by 2016. In July, the Federal Open Market Committee said that there had been “cumulative progress” made toward this goal.

The Fed has maintained that it will not raise interest rates until the labor force reaches maximum employment and inflation hits 2 percent. Continue reading →

The U.S. economy created only 142,000 jobs in August, down from 212,000 in July, indicating the economy significantly slowed this summer.

Job creation is well below the pace needed to reemploy all the workers displaced during the financial crisis—the economy is in crisis!

Although official GDP estimates indicate the economy expanded in the second quarter at a torrid pace—4.2. percent—much of that was inventory build, as consumer spending continued to drag along at a nonplus pace and capital investment, especially in manufacturing, remains subpar.

The official jobless rate is down to 6.1 percent but real unemployment is closer to 18 percent, because so many prime aged adults are sitting out the party.

Don’t believe the happy talk coming out of the White House, Federal Reserve and Treasury Department when it comes to the real unemployment rate and the true “Misery Index.” Because, according to an influential Wall Street advisor, the figures are a fraud.

In a memo to clients provided to Secrets, David John Marotta calculates the actual unemployment rate of those not working at a sky-high 37.2 percent, not the 6.7 percent advertised by the Fed, and the Misery Index at over 14, not the 8 claimed by the government.

Marotta, who recently advised those worried about an imploding economy to get a gun, said that the government isn’t being honest in how it calculates those out of the workforce or inflation, the two numbers used to get the Misery Index figure.

“The unemployment rate only describes people who are currently working or looking for work,” he said. That leaves out a ton more. Continue reading →

The recent job report was disappointing on several different levels. The new jobs number was appalling. The number of new jobs, 74,000 doesn’t even keep up with population growth. In fact, if it were doubled, it would still be short of keeping pace with population growth. Simply stated, it means we are moving backwards.

But it gets worse — a shockingly large and growing group of Americans are chronically jobless and have evidently given up hope of finding a job because they are completely outside of the workforce. Another 347,000 Americans left the workforce. Continue reading →

Let me be the first to ask: Did the White House know that employment reports were being falsified?

Last week I reported exclusively that someone at the Census Bureau’s Philadelphia region had been screwing around with employment data. And that person, after he was caught in 2010, claimed he was told to do so by a supervisor two levels up the chain of command.

On top of that, a reliable source whom I haven’t identified said the falsification of employment data by Census was widespread and ongoing, especially around the time of the 2012 election. Continue reading →

In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington.

The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated.

And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it.

Just two years before the presidential election, the Census Bureau had caught an employee fabricating data that went into the unemployment report, which is one of the most closely watched measures of the economy. Continue reading →

On Labor Day, we celebrate the American worker. And more than four years since the Great Recession ended in June 2009, the unemployment rate is 7.4%, a big improvement from the high of 10% in the fall of 2009. Unfortunately, the rate is hugely misleading: Most of that improvement was for all the wrong reasons.

Remember, jobless workers are not counted as being part of the labor force unless they are actively looking for work, and the decline in the unemployment rate since its peak has mostly been the result of workers dropping out of — or not entering — the labor force.

According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, if the labor market were healthy, the labor force would number about 159.2 million. But the actual labor force numbers just 155.8 million. That means about 3.4 million “missing workers” are out there — jobless people who would be in the labor force if job opportunities were strong.

Given the weak labor market, they’re not actively looking for work and so aren’t counted. If those missing workers were actively looking, the unemployment rate would be 9.4%. Continue reading →

More people have left the workforce than got a new job during the recovery—by a factor of nearly three.

by Mortimer Zuckerman

In recent months, Americans have heard reports out of Washington and in the media that the economy is looking up—that recovery from the Great Recession is gathering steam. If only it were true. The longest and worst recession since the end of World War II has been marked by the weakest recovery from any U.S. recession in that same period.

The jobless nature of the recovery is particularly unsettling. In June, the government’s Household Survey reported that since the start of the year, the number of people with jobs increased by 753,000—but there are jobs and then there are “jobs.” No fewer than 557,000 of these positions were only part-time. The survey also reported that in June full-time jobs declined by 240,000, while part-time jobs soared by 360,000 and have now reached an all-time high of 28,059,000—three million more part-time positions than when the recession began at the end of 2007. Continue reading →

The most recent jobs report had a “robust” 195,000 new positions created last month as the unemployment rate held steady at 7.6 percent. Hallelujah!

Unfortunately, the problem that has stunted any green shoots in jobs recovery persisted in June and shows no signs of abating.

The problem continues to be that a huge swath of the jobs being created are part-time or temporary.

Is a job really a job if it’s only for a few weeks, or if workers have to show up every morning to see if there is temporary work that day? Should one part-time job be counted the same as a full-time position? Continue reading →

Behind Wal-Mart, the second-largest employer in America is Kelly Services, a temporary work provider.

Friday’s disappointing jobs report showed that part-time jobs are at an all-time high, with 28 million Americans now working part-time. The report also showed another disturbing fact: There are now a record number of Americans with temporary jobs.

Last Friday, a few days after Obama’s debate debacle, the Administration released a jobs report that claimed 114,000 jobs were created. That number is well below the number of jobs needed just to keep up with population growth. It is also well below the average for the past two years. Yet we are to believe that those anemic and pathetic jobs numbers caused the biggest one month drop in unempoloyment in 29 years. That simply does not add up. The math does not work. There is something wrong with the report. Perhaps it was an innocent mistake or some weird statistical anaomoly. But it would be foolish to assume that. The more likely explanation is that the administration monkeyed with the numbers to make them look good and give Obama some much needed relief as his campaign was in free fall.

Below is what Jack Welch has to say about the jobs report and the media’s attempt to cow him. Very interesting reading! And very revealing! Continue reading →

Our Mission

Frontiers of Freedom, founded in 1995 by U.S. Senator Malcolm Wallop, is an educational foundation whose mission is to promote the principles of individual freedom, peace through strength, limited government, ...